Writes of Passage

30 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023

The Met Opera House in New York is in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts square. It shares the plaza and water fountain with Avery Fisher Hall now David Geffen Hall (NYPhil) and David ballet on the other side.

Operas @ the Met Opera House, 2022

Winter time seems the good time to go to indoor events, such as opera and ballet. I got tickets this January and March to a series of operas at the Met.

The list:

1. La Boheme, 1896 by Puccini (1858-1924)
2. Tosca, 1900 by Puccini
3. The Marriage of Figaro, 1786 by Mozart
4. Rigoletto, 1851 by Verdi (1813-1901)
5. Don Carlos, 1867 by Verdi  
6. Madama Butterly, 1904 by Puccini
7. Eugene Onegin, 1879 by Tchaikovsky (1840-93)

Although I enjoyed them all but Mozart is still my fave. Madama Butterly and Eugene Onegin are all good too. Don Carlos is clearly the it boy. His giant posters (different versions) adorn the right side of the Met’s building whenever I went this season.

I haven’t seen Denyce Graves (1963-) for a long while … WHERE is she and her Carmen?

In March, I received next season 2022/3’s program in the mail. It’s a little bewildering that they still send out printed program, when our tickets could be used in smart phone app.

This sprint, February 24, to be exact, Russia invaded Ukraine. The classical world reacts to it by firing Russian conductor Valery Gergiev (1953-) and the Met cancelled Russian Anna Netrebko (1971-) who was discovered and promoted by Gergiev, with the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska. I see Met’s explanation during the Don Carlos on March 10th (my previous opera Rigoletto was on January 25th).

The leading ladies in Madama Butterly, Butterfly and Suzuki are played by Eleonora Buratto (1982-) and Elizabeth DeShong respectively. Both are Caucasians. Wondering, why Met doesn’t use Asian sopranos for the parts, and why no complains heard from the Asian community – there was a controversy during David H Hwang’s M. Buttery in 1988, over casting.

The Playbill for Eugene Onegin has a paragraph on its history at the Met. It premiered in 1920 in Italian, and in 1977, sung in Russian and was conducted by James Levine (1943-2021). Levine had been with the Met for four decades (1976-2016) and was disgraced over his sexual misconduct. Comparing to pulling down General Robert E. Lee’s statues, Levine enjoys far better treatment. History should be remembered as truthfully as we could record it.

157 West 57th St

Between 6th & 7th avenue, this is the thinest building in the world, west of Steinway Hall. The 75-story has a 1,005′ roof, was completed in 2014. At the moment, the condos/residences are serviced by Park Hyatt. I parked here often when I went to concert at the Carnegie Hall as it went up.

Night, or day, at Times Square in New York is filled with actions.

…

69 Mott Street
New York

I was looking for a bathroom in Chinatown. Walked into Canal Street Market. Wanting to make sure they’ve a bathroom before I buy anything. So I asked. A man at the deep end of the hall said, “If you buy something, I’ll let you in.”
“What do you sell?”
“Anything here.”
I walked away: don’t like to be blackmailed, and also think, could he actual do that?

That’s when I decided to go to this restaurant. The staff speaks Cantonese, so, made me thinking they serve cantonese cuisine, my most favored. I know the name say Shanghai … but when do I ever read?

Half the patrons is Chinese and mostly converse in Cantonese. The other half non Chinese maybe tourists (?) I heard one diner ordering food with deliberate slow pace, as if talking to a kid, which makes me feeling the Chinaman era just returned.

Good service. Food is so so with big portion. I ordered the lunch set $6.95: sour and spicy soup 酸辣汤 is way too sour and the fish-flavored shredded pork 鱼香肉丝 is way too sweet. I added chili oil from the jar on the table but it isn’t spicy at all.

By the time I left at around 1pm, the restaurant is pretty full. But the noise level is low, comfortable.

Btw, the bathroom in the basement, although small, is clean. Mission accomplished.

67 Central Park West
New York, NY 10023

I’ve always enjoyed this restaurant and the bar. We stop by often after a hike in the Park at their beer garden during the warmer months.  This is the restaurant week in New York City: $39 for much and $59 for dinner. The wine pairing is $20: white, red and port.

The bar and the dinning halls

Food and wine/drinks: is this a hair? The lentil salad and striped bass are awesome. Chocolate cr

Following the footsteps in the City, tracing back to 1923:

• 1923: 285 1st Street, Brooklyn
• 1950: 57 Mott Street, the block is btw Canal & Bayard 
• 1957: 69-18 Dartmouth St., Forest Hills

Brooklyn

Manhattan Chinatown

Queens

… and a movie theater 91-93 Bowery at Hester Street. 

This photo is taken from the Pond at Central Park‘s SE corner (59th St & 5th Avenue) with iPhone 12.

A few new towers went up recently and redefine the city’s midtown skyline. The buildings in this photo, old and new, are (L to R):

1. Park Lane hotel @ 36 Central Park South
2. Steinway Tower @ 111 West 57th Street at 1,428′
3. One57 @ 157 57th St at 1,004′
4. Central Park Tower @ 1,550′
5. …?216 W 58th St? 88 stories 2013
6. Columbus Circle Mall @ Time Warner Center

… more photos from the park

Michelle Go (1982-2022), a former employee at Deloitt dead on January 15, being pushed by a homeless man onto the subway tracks at Times Square station. RIP.

It was a freak accident, very unfortunate. Who is responsible for this homeless man? The institution that should treat him or prison that should hold him?

I usually take the LIRR into the City but today I choose subway. As soon as I got down to #7 in Flushing, I saw two police officers, one male and one female.

… more photos of subway stations Flushing, Grand Central, Bleecker Street, Spring Street, Canal Street, 59th Street. Van Gogh exhibit – immersive experience at Pier 36 ad is seen on the train. It’s so much more expensive than in Paris in 2019: $36 vs 

425 Lafayette St.
New York, NY 10003

This is an art group, initially founded by Joseph Papp in 1954, as the Shakespeare workshop, now housed in the former Astor Library, opposite from Astor Place/Colonnade Row. At the moment, it’s closed but performances are planned. They’ve five or six separate spaces. Joe’s Pub is a music venue and restaurant.

Every summer, they put on free Shakespeare plays in Central Park‘s open air Delacorte Theater. I’ve tried to get a ticket or two from the lottery system but never succeeded. The staff here said, well you could get it from donating to us, starting $500.

^{The poster for the premiere in  1896 by Adolfo Hohenstein,}